In "The Computer and the Inexperienced Writer," Christine Hult uses another article by Elizabeth Sommers to explain the difference between student writers and adult writiers and how those differences relate to word processing and revision.
"'Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers' identified two main ways in which the revision strategies of student and experienced writers differ: (1) student writers saw their compositions in discrete parts and considered revision to be a rewording activity; experienced writers saw their compositions as a complete unit and considered revision to be a communication activity," Hult says.
Hult's main point in defining these differences is to serve her purpose of showing how word processing can "potentially inhibit the very revision strategies we attempt to teach our inexperienced student writers", but I think I.A. Richards (who I will be forced to think about constantly now after my presentation) would be interested in these kinds of differences.
It may speak to his efforts of trying to get student writers to communicate better that Sommers found that experienced writers saw revision as a communication act. We are affected constantly by the language we use to communicate and if you are an experienced writer, then you have mastered language so that you communicate clearly. Student writers who see revision as rewording are missing the meaning of writing: to get across your meaning as clearly and efficiently as possible.
Richards would also be interested in Sommer's other finding: " student writers viewed their texts as the embodiment of redefined meaning; experienced writers used writing and rewriting to discover meaning." In creating his theory of Basic English, Richards wanted us to always be aware of the fact that we can create meaning through metaphor. We can communicate anything we want with the use of language as a metaphor.
Richards and Sommers seem to be on the same page in some sense because their findings reveal what Richards advocates for: being aware of how you use language so language does not use you. Experienced writers are successful because they know this.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Classroom politics
Our discussion of bell hooks Tuesday was an important realization that politics and education will always be inevitably linked. Women like bell hooks strive to change the ways in which we see education and more importantly, the ways in which we educate. She is in good company when trying to escape the white-supremist, patriachial hierarchy in which we see the classroom.
Cynthia Selfe is attempting to escape this same paradigm in her article "The Politics of the Interface," in which she warns of the ways computers can marginalize certain populations of students based on class and socio-economic background and education.
Tim McGee and Patricia Ericsson visit politics again in their article "Politics of the Program: MS Word as the Invisble Grammarian." They quote Selfe's article as well as an article by Joel Haefner to begin their article about the politics of MS Word: "English instructors in computer-supported classrooms need to know something about the context and the necromancers of the code," Haefner says in resonse to Theodor Nelson's claim that "a computer language is a system for casting spells." (308-09)
The authors talk about politics in writing in terms of what issues are priveleged over others while students are drafting in MS Word. Their claim is that Word makes grammar seem like the most important part of writing because its default setting, "Check grammar as you type", "makes grammar a primary concern by foregrounding correctness even while writers are in the drafting stage."
McGee and Ericsson suggest changing the default settings of MS Word so as not to discourage students from writing by concerning them too much with grammatical correctness, thus escaping the politics of "the invisible grammarian." bell hooks suggests changing the way we teach to include students and their experiences in their own learning process to escape the politics of the classroom and "the academy". We cannot escape the politics of any aspect of teaching. That is something we will inevitably face when exploring our own pedagogies.
Cynthia Selfe is attempting to escape this same paradigm in her article "The Politics of the Interface," in which she warns of the ways computers can marginalize certain populations of students based on class and socio-economic background and education.
Tim McGee and Patricia Ericsson visit politics again in their article "Politics of the Program: MS Word as the Invisble Grammarian." They quote Selfe's article as well as an article by Joel Haefner to begin their article about the politics of MS Word: "English instructors in computer-supported classrooms need to know something about the context and the necromancers of the code," Haefner says in resonse to Theodor Nelson's claim that "a computer language is a system for casting spells." (308-09)
The authors talk about politics in writing in terms of what issues are priveleged over others while students are drafting in MS Word. Their claim is that Word makes grammar seem like the most important part of writing because its default setting, "Check grammar as you type", "makes grammar a primary concern by foregrounding correctness even while writers are in the drafting stage."
McGee and Ericsson suggest changing the default settings of MS Word so as not to discourage students from writing by concerning them too much with grammatical correctness, thus escaping the politics of "the invisible grammarian." bell hooks suggests changing the way we teach to include students and their experiences in their own learning process to escape the politics of the classroom and "the academy". We cannot escape the politics of any aspect of teaching. That is something we will inevitably face when exploring our own pedagogies.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
In Maxine Cousin Hairston's essay "The Winds of Change," she outlines the traditional composition paradigm and then suggests an emerging paradigm (emerging in terms of 1982) and its features. The last feature of the paradigm is, for me, the most important: "It (the paradigm) stresses that writing teachers should be people who write."
This is something that I was glad Wendy Bishop speaks about. As an accomplished creative writer, Bishop also stresses the importance of writing teachers being writers themselves. This goes back to the generalized rule that teachers should practice what they preach, but I also think it contributes to a teacher's classroom ethos. Teachers should be constantly learning and improving their writing as they struggle to help their students improve. As Dr. Souder quoted in her blog this week, the best way to learn something is to write about it. Teachers should not only be educators of new learners, but life-long learners themsleves. Wendy Bishop was a proponent for bringing creative writing into the composition classroom. She constantly practiced her own creative writing and had much of her work published, so when she says that teachers can be writers too, she proves it.
Another of Hairston's features I found important was that the paradigm is based on "linguistic research into the composing process." This relates to the research Leki did into the testing of students as they entered the composition program. Her new way of testing was proven successful as they implemented in Tennessee and as Kimi tried it in her class, showing that research pays off. It helped her develop new ways of doing things that are beneficial to writing students.
This is something that I was glad Wendy Bishop speaks about. As an accomplished creative writer, Bishop also stresses the importance of writing teachers being writers themselves. This goes back to the generalized rule that teachers should practice what they preach, but I also think it contributes to a teacher's classroom ethos. Teachers should be constantly learning and improving their writing as they struggle to help their students improve. As Dr. Souder quoted in her blog this week, the best way to learn something is to write about it. Teachers should not only be educators of new learners, but life-long learners themsleves. Wendy Bishop was a proponent for bringing creative writing into the composition classroom. She constantly practiced her own creative writing and had much of her work published, so when she says that teachers can be writers too, she proves it.
Another of Hairston's features I found important was that the paradigm is based on "linguistic research into the composing process." This relates to the research Leki did into the testing of students as they entered the composition program. Her new way of testing was proven successful as they implemented in Tennessee and as Kimi tried it in her class, showing that research pays off. It helped her develop new ways of doing things that are beneficial to writing students.
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